


Sick Virus

by LeslieFromtheSkies



Category: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Webseries)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 21:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeslieFromtheSkies/pseuds/LeslieFromtheSkies
Summary: Tony tends to Colin, who has a virus.





	Sick Virus

**Author's Note:**

> i said i wouldn't read through these but i faintly remembered something to make me read it again, to put the warning up. other than that? yeesh!

Tony slowly walked into the dark study room with a plate of gears and bolts. He believed that someone inhabiting this room would get better in time if he brought them every day. And it had seemed to work… for the most part. He hadn’t come out in a couple weeks.  
“Hello?” The clock calmly called out.  
A white glow came from the corner in the room. It flashed for a second, then disappeared.  
“I have got something for you,” the clock called again, standing in place.  
The light came back again, longer this time. It shined in Tony’s face before steadily rising to the ceiling. It leaned closer to the seemingly small clock.  
“I-I hope you’re not angry because I’m late,” Tony stuttered, just slightly bending back in fear. “It took longer to find these for you. My apologies.”  
He felt an active wire carefully wrap around his hand, just barely missing the felt glove with its electricity. It took the plate, releasing the hand, and went towards the bright glow of light. Several crunches later, the plate dropped and shattered on the ground. Tony jumped back in surprise.  
“H-haha, isn’t that better?” He asked, staring into the darkness under the light. “N-now you’re… now…”  
He felt a wire on his back. It didn’t seem like it would easily electrocute him. He sighed.  
“Now, I hope you feel better soon.”  
Another wire was wrapping around his left arm. He reached up with his right.  
“It’s been a week since this happened, hasn’t it? Or more?”  
The wire on his left arm tightened up, but not too hard. Tony’s hand met solid plastic.  
“That doesn’t matter, though. What matters is that you’re doing better than when this first started. You haven’t hurt anyone since Monday!”  
The wire tugged at the clock’s arm ever so slightly. The clock saw the light dim, and he heard a low growl.  
“...Right?”  
The wire on the clock’s back slowly went around his body. It settled in his mouth, loosely hanging out. The wire that was coiled around his arm bent in and locked up.  
Tony raced to calm his nerves, realizing what he was about to get, and mumbled out a weak, “Oh no…”  
The wire suddenly and violently pulled outwards, taking Tony’s arm with it. The clock’s shoulder ripped, and his arm messily came off, oil spewing from it. Tony bit down hard on the wire in his mouth, just barely muffling a scream of pain, and squeezed his eyes shut.  
He heard his arm drop to the floor. He could just barely see the light return to its full brightness, and something was in the middle of it. He opened an eye.  
“SORRY” was the only word, typed in black, directly in the middle of the screen. Two other lights below the screen had appeared, and two square eyes matched the word.  
The wire in the clock’s mouth moved away as the screens backed away from him. Different words spilled onto the screen and made it black, but one word stood out after the screen had become black.  
The word “run” in white lowercase.  
Tony didn’t hesitate. He grabbed his dismembered arm and ran out of the room, trailing oil after him, and slammed the door. He then ran for anyone to help him become one again.

A week later, Colin was talking with Shrignold. Not behind any doors, but face-to-face. The computer seemed fine, but had to ask about what happened. And he learned all about it.  
He had a virus. None of the teachers had ever seen it before, but they all knew it was dangerous the first day he got it. They had to lock him up in a room of the house so he wouldn’t hurt anyone.  
Colin had also asked who he had hurt, and he also got those answers. He ripped out many of Sketchbook’s pages, he slammed the butterfly he got answers from against a wall, he almost smashed Lamp to pieces, and he electrocuted Steak on the day he was put into the room. He had also snuck out once and put another large crack in Lamp two Mondays ago, but the door was locked from the outside instead of being watched by the Food Group’s scary bodyguard all day after that.  
The computer also learned about what Tony had done for him. Or, as much as Shrignold knew. The clock had brought him offerings of some sort, believing it would make him feel better. It was all his idea, as no one else would’ve even THOUGHT about risking their lives like that. But Tony thought differently than everyone else most of the time. He couldn’t leave Colin all alone like everyone else. No matter how dangerous it was to see him.  
Colin learned where the oil in the room came from. Tony. He hurt Tony. After all he did for him, he hurt Tony.  
“Can I apologize to him?” Colin asked Shrignold after he was done explaining everything.  
“Well,” the butterfly carefully replied. “I’m not sure. He’s still a bit shaken up after you did that to him.”  
The computer’s screen flickered, the word “No” popping up more than once. “Is he... in one piece?”  
Shrignold nodded, chuckling. “You’d be amazed at what Sketchbook can do.”  
“I want to see him,” Colin emotionlessly said before taking a step towards the living room.  
“Whoa, friend,” the butterfly gasped. “Only I know you’re alright! You should stay here so I can tell everyone-”  
“I want to see him,” the computer repeated in the same tone of voice.  
The butterfly sighed. “Just… wait here, alright? I’ll see if I can get him.”  
Colin whirred for a second, but he nodded. “Please bring him. I want to see him.”  
Shrignold ran to find him. A moment later, he came back to the computer with Tony. The clock’s left arm had been carefully stitched back into place so he could use it again. His face was fearful upon seeing the computer, but he grabbed the butterfly’s arm with both his hands as the two approached him.  
Colin's screen blanked out when the two stopped in front of him. He quickly changed it to a pixelated picture of the clock.  
“Tony,” Shrignold said to the clock in his gentle voice, “He isn’t going to hurt you. I spoke to him before I got you, and he seems fine for the moment. Okay?”  
The clock slowly nodded, keeping his eyes on the computer. He took his right hand off of Shrignold and took a cautious step forward. He reached for Colin’s face, but hesitated a couple inches away from his face. His hand balled up into a fist and moved it back towards himself.  
Colin’s screen buffered and showed an animation of a pink heart shattering into two before flicking to the default green grid. His cursor hands went to the sides of his face.  
Tony stretched his fingers out on his right hand again and forcefully placed it on the computer’s left. He slowly took his left hand off Shrignold, who was still there to make sure that nothing went wrong.  
“Tony,” Colin squeaked. “I’m sorry for whatever I did to you. I couldn’t control myself, honest!”  
The clock’s left hand moved to the computer’s right. He moved them away from his monitor and towards him, looking at his cracked hands.  
“...that virus changed us both for the worst, haven’t we?” He asked.  
The computer’s screen changed to a question mark. “Huh?”  
Tony looked back up to his face and smiled. Bags under his eyes became more noticeable as the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile.  
“I haven’t slept for 167 hours and 36 minutes because of… what it made you do to me. What if it happened again while I was sleeping, but worse? I can’t let that happen again! I…” He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “And, with you… it’s more physical than what happened to me, I think.”  
Colin looked down at his hands before the clock had stopped speaking. Only then he realized what the virus had REALLY done to him. It made him look and act like a monster.  
His plastic hands and feet were extremely mangled, and even showing the metal wiring underneath in more than just some places. His arms and legs were completely stripped of the protective outside coating, and active electricity visibly pulsed through them every few seconds. His keyboard body was missing many keys, hopefully still in the study, and he could feel his back panel was open and showing the motherboard and wires inside.  
Colin looked back up to Tony, who scraped his right thumb against a lower eyelid of his. When he brought it back, a streak of crusty, dark yellow oil was thinly layered on his glove. The fans in his head whirred loudly in surprise, and his hands went to his eyes.  
“It doesn’t look pretty,” Tony cautiously muttered to the him. “But it doesn’t look that bad. Just needs some warm water and soap.”  
The computer chuckled and gestured to the rest of his body. “Warm water and soap is all I need, huh?”  
“Well-!” The clock’s face flushed. “J-just your face! The rest of you will need to be fixed up a bit.”  
“With warm water and soap.”  
“Shut up; you know what I mean.”  
The two of them laughed. Tony went to wrap his hands around Colin, but the computer held him back so he wouldn’t get zapped by his dangerous form.  
Shrignold was leaning against the wall, still watching the two. He didn’t approve of them liking each other very much, but he was happy that the clock wasn’t having another panic attack. If he was calm, he was happy. Mostly. He shook his head and sighed.  
“While you two… lovebirds get back together,” the butterfly forced out. “I’ll get a bucket ready for you.”  
Both Tony and Colin looked back at the butterfly as he half flew, half stumbled to the kitchen. They could just barely hear him muttering, “It goes against Malcolm, Shrig. Keep it together.”


End file.
